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Northville woman provides confidante service
The stress of the corporate workplace can be a bit draining.
Few people know that better than Donna Marie, a Northville resident who got fed up with the corporate environment and took a different path—one that allows her to help other people in their daily lives.
Calling herself a ‘confidante,’ she works out of her home serving executives, business owners and other types of professionals, helping them remove themselves from the drama of daily conflict.
“I’m trying to give them a new way of thinking,” she said.
With more than 20 years of experience at General Motors, Marie has worked in virtually all aspects of that corporate environment—everything from supervising line workers to upper administration. The training she received—coupled with her own educational background in psychology—helped her realize that she could help others better deal with conflict and drama in their own lives.
“I don’t think we can go through life without stress, but I do believe there are different levels of stress,” she said. “There are better ways to handle it.”
She works with clients on an individual basis, she said, helping to improve their emotional intelligence and awareness so they can better process and move through setbacks, crisis and stressful situations.
Sessions are lengthy—they can last up to four hours—and Marie usually schedules eight of them.
The first session is an introductory one, of course, that lets her know what direction the next sessions will take.
“We work together on what is going on with them at that moment,” she said.
Stress and conflict in daily life is a virtual certainty, she said. Society, in general, programs us for it—by forcing us to concentrate on the past and the future, rather than the present. Most of her technique is focused on shifting that perception to allow people to come up with ideal ways to handle situations in their daily lives.
“I teach them how to improve their internal support system, too, so when they leave me they know they can support themselves,” she said.
Marie said she focuses on the quality of time she can spend with her clients, rather than on the quantity of clients themselves. In addition to the sessions, the clients frequently call her when other issues come up—which springs from another thing Marie has learned through the years: the business world can be a lonely one.
That’s why her confidante service is important, she said: it allows people to use her as a sounding board, asking questions or seeking advice in situations where they couldn’t consult their peers or partners.
Everything is kept strictly confidential.
She’s been out of the corporate world for several years now, and she’s enjoyed her time as a motivational speaker, consultant and now, confidante.
“I love people,” she said. I love helping people at all levels. It’s a personal reward for me to be able to enhance their lives.
“(Some of them) need relief, they need to get out from where they’re at,” she added. “They feel like they’re drowning and I help them float to the top. Everyone is a swimmer.”
